Madden 10: WR/DB Improvements

Keeping with the weekly trend of Madden 2010 info being posted on the Inside EA Blog, today lead designer Ian Cummings has detailed some of the improvements made to the Wide Receiver and Defensive Backs positions. This includes the return of the much needed defensive assignments, route running and man coverage, and various WR/DB interactions. You can check out the full blog posting which includes some demonstration videos here.

Second, we took a page from the FIFA team and added in the concept of ‘jostling’. Personally I am extremely stoked to have this in the game because I’ve written a design for it for 5+ years in a row…unfortunately we just never had the technology to accomplish it. The ‘jostling’ concept is a set of looping 2-man animations that can play for the WR and DB as they run downfield. The main reason that I am so big on these animations is that it really helps alleviate a balance problem that has existed in Madden for years. I’m talking about the fact that traditionally you can send a player with a 99 speed rating (regardless of his other ratings like route running, catching, etc) on a streak and easily get behind a defender in man coverage. In real life, regardless of the difference in speed, a good defensive back can use his body to keep the receiver in check… a fly route is rarely an untouched foot-race sprint to the endzone.